Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on authors
- Acknowledgments
- Note to the reader
- Part I Learning
- 1 Planning foreign-language study
- 2 Understanding the role of cognition in the learning process
- 3 Learning styles and learning strategies
- 4 Understanding feelings and personality in language learning
- 5 Interpersonal dynamics in the learning process
- Part II Language
- Part III Independence
- Epilogue: from here to there: attaining near-native proficiency
- Appendix A Answers to “practicing what you have learned”
- Appendix B Learning strategies taxonomies
- References
- Index
5 - Interpersonal dynamics in the learning process
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on authors
- Acknowledgments
- Note to the reader
- Part I Learning
- 1 Planning foreign-language study
- 2 Understanding the role of cognition in the learning process
- 3 Learning styles and learning strategies
- 4 Understanding feelings and personality in language learning
- 5 Interpersonal dynamics in the learning process
- Part II Language
- Part III Independence
- Epilogue: from here to there: attaining near-native proficiency
- Appendix A Answers to “practicing what you have learned”
- Appendix B Learning strategies taxonomies
- References
- Index
Summary
Preview
This chapter introduces you to the interpersonal dimension of learning – your relationships with others involved in your learning process such as teachers and other students. Topics that this chapter will address include:
Levels of interaction: individual, pairs, groups, and between groups.
The importance of group cohesion.
Individual differences and group dynamics.
Teachers' attributes and needs.
Teacher–student relations.
Student–student relations.
Your personality and your feelings are both influenced by your relationships with others, and in turn they influence how you play out those relationships. To continue our example of a learner with a strong need for orderliness, that learner might want to interact only with other students who make few mistakes. That could be because the learner does not want to have to sort out what is right and wrong, but would rather put energy into learning the vocabulary that is so hard to retain. We will talk about some ways learners interact with teachers, other students, and with themselves.
Levels of interaction
In a foreign-language classroom, there can be a number of ways of interrelating. We call these levels of interaction. While not all levels of interaction that exist in real life are present in the foreign-language classroom, at least three are. These include:
Within the individual (intrapersonal processes)
Between two individuals (processes or relations)
Among members of a group (group dynamics)
Interaction within the individual
Individual dynamics are reactions to outside stimuli that you experience but do not share with or express to others.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition , pp. 131 - 144Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005